It works (a first for me) and it looks ok too (if your into transparent plastic). It makes the bike look like something out of ET (when ET gets sick and Elliot gets sick too and the house gets wrapped in plastic… anyway, I digress)

I bet Yuba brings a fancy one out tomorrow, now I’ve made one.

So here’s a quick photo tutorial.

What you need:

a double pram cover (the pram cover has little air holes stamped down the sides of it)

1. Tried to find an old used pram cover. Couldn’t. Ended up buying a new one. I got this double pram cover for $25 from baby bunting. The brand is Valco

2. For the frame I got some 12mm wide aluminium flatbar from the hardware store. Think it was about $5 a metre. Needed about 3 metres. You could use the aluminium tubing type stuff, instead of the flatbar. Might be a bit more work, but maybe a better and stronger frame.

3. Then I bent two pieces into the two frame pieces. They are kinda ‘U’ shaped and one is slightly smaller than the other so they fold snugly together. I had to make them long enough to push the pram cover out a bit, but not too long as they would stretch the plastic. Anyway, it wasn’t hard to work out.

4. The Monkeybars have a pre drilled hole hallway along, so I used this to make the fulcrum point where the aluminium frame joins together, and bolts onto the monkeybars. I bought some bolts just the right length and some wing nuts (to make it easy to take off and on).

see the rubber washer holding everything together when you remove the cover from the bike?

5. Then I put the pram cover over the frame, velcroed the back of the pram cover to the back of the monkeybars (this holds the whole thing under tension when it is erected). I put some Velcro bits at the ‘seat end’ of the pram cover so when it’s erected, it straps on and stays taught. Get the all-weather type Velcro. It’s expensive but very good. It’s gonna be in the elements so worth paying a bit more.

you can see the Velcro bits on the cover

6. Then I got some bolts and wingnuts that were just the right length. I put plastic washers in between the two aluminium frame pieces, so they wouldn’t rub on each other. Aluminium is pretty soft and wears out quickly under stress.

7. I put a tight fitting rubber washer on last to hold all the washers and frame bits together, so when I remove the whole finished raincover, the washers don’t all fall off. I used the rubber washers from tech screws that hold down laserlight roofing. They are little black washers. You could use a teeny bit of gaffer tape or whatever.

8. Once the pram cover was in position and looking good, it was time to make the bottom plastic attachment, or “skirt”. I bought a few metres of plastic stuff from the hardware store. It comes in different thicknesses. Choose the one that is not so thin it will rip easily, but not so think that it’s super heavy and hard to fold and carry.

heres the skirt laid out. This skirt reminds me of a joke: A guys walks into a psychiatrists room wearing a skirt made out of cling-wrap. The psychiatrist says, “Well firstly, I can clearly see your nuts”…hey cmon, its not that bad…

9. Then I fitted the skirt. This was a bit fiddly. I had to peg it in place with bulldog clips, then put the stick on Velcro bits on while it was pegged up. You’ve gotta make sure the skirt is UNDER the pram cover, so the water will run off the outside of the skirt. When the skirt was velcroed to the pram cover, I trimmed the bottom, stuck some fuzzy Velcro to parts of the bike frame, stuck some scratchy Velcro to the skirt (in the same spots) and the skirt sticks nice and snuggly. Wind doesn’t seem to shake it and it’s pretty aerodynamic really.

9. That pretty much it! I chucked some caps over the wingnuts so they don’t scratch the kids and then just cruised out and freaked out the neighbours. Looks like we have bubble-wrapped the kids to keep them fresh.

It is winter #2 with this setup now.
Turns out 1 NY winter is enough to destroy the plastic cover (this plastic gets a lot more brittle at cold temperature). So I can barely make it to the spring then I have to put a new plastic again before the fall. But otherwise it works 🙂 Only the “driver” has to get completely soaked on bad rain days. It is definitively a patch work of zip ties, duct tape, etc.

yes, tubes, per your suggestion (although they didn’t have enough in stock the day I went.. so some are the flat kind and indeed tubes are much better!

xtracycle is great, but a bit on the heavy side. We need to lift it everyday to park it and it’s pretty heavy. There is a spring gizmo to hold the wheel aligned when it is up in the air but we have a huge metal basket in the front so the wheel can swing hard when it doesn’t touch the ground (i.e. on a stand)